Millions of scholarship dollars go unclaimed each year in Canada
May 6, 2018 by admin
Filed under Provincial and Territorial News
Millions of scholarship dollars go unclaimed each year in Canada
Deadline for many scholarships is at the end of May
Financial consultant Lesley-Anne Scorgie says millions of scholarship dollars go unclaimed each year at Canadian universities. (CBC)
You don’t have to be a genius or a sports superstar to qualify for a university scholarship.
That’s the message from financial expert Lesley-Anne Scorgie as students enter the final stretch of the school year and have to start thinking about tuition fees before heading out for summer vacation.
“What we have, unfortunately, is millions of scholarship dollars being left on the table because students are not bothering to apply,” she told The Homestretch.
“What we are finding, is that students believe, or they claim to believe, that the application process is arduous, or they need to have very high marks, or they need to be in a financially precarious position.”
But those three things — an arduous application process, the need for high marks or that a student be financially destitute — are requirements in only one-third of scholarships available, she said.
“The other two-thirds of scholarships are up for grabs and that’s where the millions of dollars are really sitting.”
The president and founder of MeVest, a Calgary-based personal finance coaching company, Scorgie says there are three main databases of available scholarships students can access:
Students can also visit their chosen institution’s financial aid office and be paired with an advisor.
“What we recommend is that you first sort by your geography then your field of study and that will narrow it down,” she said.
We’re just two months away from summer vacation and for students heading to college or university in the fall, now’s the time to start thinking about tuition fees. If you didn’t get a scholarship with your admission letter, it’s not too late to apply for the thousands of other post-secondary scholarships available in Canada. Here to talk about what scholarships are out there, and how to take advantage of them, is Lesley-Anne Scorgie. She’s the president and founder of MeVest, a personal finance coaching company based here in Calgary. 4:10
Applications for many scholarships are due around the end of May, said Scorgie.
Students should plan to spend between five and 25 hours per application for each scholarship.
And while it may seem like a lot of time, it can be worth it, she said.
While attending university between 2005 and 2012, Scorgie applied for 21 different scholarships, winning five of them.
“That accounted for 30 per cent of my educational costs, so in my opinion, it was time well spent, and it literally paid off,” she told CBC Calgary News at 6.
will narrow it down,” she said.
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